curmudgeonly chaos

The health care system in this country is a disaster. Under the tyranny of huge corporations, we all get screwed.

* Last December I fall on the ice and hurt my shoulder
* I saw a doctor at an immediate care facility
* a month later, I'm not getting better
* I see my primary care physician who orders an MRI and sends me to a specialist
* I wait a few weeks to see a specialist
* based on the MRI, he injects a steroidal anti-inflammatory
* I get better

Insurance declares the MRI as not having been necessary and refuses to pay for it. Apparently, the doctors' offices and Blue Cross have been exchanging documents for five months, each claiming the other is not responding. The problem is dumped on me even though I do not have the power to resolve it.

I do not know what I have done wrong. I don't understand how I can be expected to second guess my doctor's orders, I do not have a medical degree.

I really resent having wade into the bureaucracy with their twenty minute hold times and scripted responses.

By the skin of their teeth, the Harley dealership in Portland managed to get my bike fixed yesterday. sig_info (Mark) (Half) drove me to Portland to fetch it. Today, I took off for California for a week of work at Mozilla.

The forecast warned me it would be a wet ride. I'm really glad that I spent the time to reapply the water proofing to all my leathers. It rained for the first three minutes as I rode away from home and then rained on me pretty hard passing through Eugene forty minutes later. The worst rain was climbing Siskiyou Pass in Oregon and then all the way to Weed, California.

Not having riding very much yet this year, I've gotten really tired. I decided to call it a day at Red Bluff where I pulled into the Super 8. That's when the real adventure began. I've already twittered this event, but I'm going to reiterate it here with a little more detail for posterity.

I walked into my ground level room and found it quite stuffy, so I left the door open. I appear to be the only guest in this entire wing of the place. I decide to wash the highway off my face and head first to the sink. Soaped up, I sense a change in light level in the room and look up into the mirror. There is a guy smoking a cigarette walking into the room behind me.

I turn around abruptly and shout, "What the fuck are you doing? Get the hell out of here!" As he turns and walks out, he says, "mind if I look at your ride?" Pausing long enough to splash water on my face and getting soap in my eyes, I leap back to the door just in time to see him settling onto the seat of my bike.

"Get the fuck off my bike!", I yell as he mutters something about the bungees that I left hanging on the handlebars. He starts to get off, but catches his foot on the seat and then goes sprawling face first onto the pavement. Pulling himself drunkenly up and with his nose dripping blood, he asks if I want to go for a beer. I shout for him to get the hell out of here as he starts to shamble off toward the street.

As I was following him off the property, he asks to borrow the bike because he needs to go to Florida: "Twelve hours, that's all I need--" he interrupts himself and says looking at my beard, "what's...? braids? That's stupid," running his hand over his chin and smearing blood around which he seems completely unaware of, he says, "I shaved today." I shout, "get out of here".

I walk into the motel office and tell the clerk what has just happened. She moves to call the police, but stops as we watch the guy wander away passed the gas station across the street. She says that if I see him again, I should contact the office immediately.

Later, I walk to a cafe for dinner and I spot the guy again. He with some skater kids about a half mile from the hotel and they don't seem very pleased with him. I wander back to the hotel wondering if I could get the bike through the door into the hotel room...

Canyonville, Oregon. I seem to be avoiding rain pretty well. The heaviest was in the first three minutes of the trip. Looks like thunderheads forming to the south - forecast looks wet.

This time of the year, we have literally thousands of rose bushes in bloom. Paul makes these great bouquets that we give to the cafes that we frequent. Today taking this ball-o-roses to the French bakery resulted in applause from the clientele as we walked in.

I've said it before, one Harley dealer is not enough. I need several that I can play off one another to get what I want.

On the Thursday just before the end of May, the transmission failed on my just-over-one-year-old bike. A buddy helped me trailer the thing to the Harley dealership in Salem. They said that they would triage it the following week and if the problem was a simple one, they'd fix it right then. This had my knickers all in a twist because I was planning on riding down to California for some work at Mozilla next week and that was cutting the schedule too close.

Fast forward to last Thursday, and I still had not heard from them. I called and they said that they would not even get a first look at the bike for at least another two weeks. I called another dealer in Portland and they said that they could look at it the next day. I called my friend with the trailer and we drove up to Salem. I took my bike back from them: they were none too pleased. Hell, I told them about my urgency and if they weren't willing to work with me, I'll gladly take my money else where. Interestingly, this failing dealership was the hero when I last posted with a similar topic.

The Portland dealer followed through and diagnosed the problem within twenty-four hours: broken shifter pawl, under warranty. They'll have the bike back to me by Tuesday.

So I'm heading to California on Saturday, June 13 and heading back North beginning Friday, June 19. My routes and any dawdling that I might do are contingent on any invitation that I might get. I'd like to have the trip not be dedicated to just work.

Randie and I took the bike to the Harley dealer in Salem. The bike is still in warranty. They promise to get a look at it next week and if the problem is something simple (low probability), they'll fix it right then. However, the more likely scenario is that they'll triage the problem next week and then schedule the repair two to three weeks further out.

I am having a tantrum over this. Please stand by while my silly grieving runs its course.

I'm planning on riding down to California for my next work at Mozilla gig in two weeks. I've been riding daily to get into shape. On today's ride, I got three miles from home and stopped at a traffic light. On getting the green, I move out, pull the clutch about to shift into second and my foot can't find the shift bar. I slow, staying in first and start to pull over. I look down and see the shift lever stuck in the up position. I pull to the side and stop. I reach down and try the shift lever with my hand only to find it moving freely through a full range of motion without affecting the transmission in any way. I think, broken cotter pin, loose set screw. I get off the bike and look closely as I work the lever. I can see the shaft into the transmission is moving as freely as the lever. FUCK!

My friend Randie picks me up with his bike trailer an hour later. Tomorrow we trailer the bike up to Portland where this ONE YEAR OLD BIKE had better the fuck still be in warranty. I'm so mad, I'm spitting fire balls.

This time of the year, I doubt that the dealership will even be able to get to my bike by the time I need to leave for California. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

I hope to see a demo sometime this week.

My work has me traveling back to California this weekend. This time, I will have my own wheels instead traveling by rail. Unfortunately, it is likely that I will have twice as many wheels as I'd prefer. It'll be a Subaru trip instead of a Harley trip. It's a timing issue. The Bay Area is two days away by bike and only one in the car; I'd love to have the luxury to dawdle, but this time, I don't. The trip is also likely to be a surgical strike - three or four days of work and I'm out.

I need to eat more fatty fish in my diet, or so says my doctor when speaking of my cholesterol level. In view of this directive, I've been buying smoked salmon at our local co-op. Recently, the price went way up, so I've been looking for alternatives. I found some significantly cheaper stuff at Costco so we gave it a try.

Worst smoked salmon ever. My feedback to the packager says it all:

We keep generations of old greenhouse flats growing mixed salad greens. We've been picking off these three trays for about a week. The next generation sprouted a week ago and will be ready as these flats go to seed. The whole process cumulatively takes about 24 square feet of bench space in our unheated greenhouse feeding the daily salad needs of two people.

There's a utility vault near the road to our farm. Someday, I suppose the power company will mount a transformer on top of it. It's been without a cover for over ten years.

Today we discovered that it had trapped a beaver. We placed a plank in there to give the beaver a way to crawl out.

I'll report what happens.




UPDATE: I'm happy to report that the beaver escaped during the night using the ramp that we provided.

At the convention in Chicago called Pycon two weeks ago, they have a type of presentation called Lightning Talks. Anyone can give an impromptu presentation on any topic within the restriction of five minutes. I decided to give one and came up with this:




WARNING: complete nerd alert

Just after this presentation, @0x71 on twitter wrote: "watching this old metal biker rock the fuck out of the HD-DVD AACS encryption key (lol'n) at #pycon"

Finally the weather has been nice to get out of the house. My friend Randie and his wife, Penney, and I ran out to the coast on our bikes. It was wonderful...

Those of you that know me, know I have an irrational stress reaction to cities. They freak me out. I know it is irrational and makes no sense. It really stresses me when I don't have my own transportation. On my bike or with my car, I have an escape and that is calming for me. When I have to rely on taxis or public transit, I'm an effing wreck.

Case in point: I got off the train today and managed to find a cab to get me to my hotel. As we entered traffic I noticed that my hands were shaking. I went through my calming thoughts exercises but didn't get very far. Suddenly the cab's right rear wheel started to thump loudly and every time the driver used the brakes, the cab veered to the right. Even more unsettling was the driver's unperturbed attitude when other vehicles in the right lane over would lay on their horns as the taxi would crowd their lane. I took deep breaths and tried to imagine that it was a video game and I wasn't really involved.

On arriving at the hotel, the bellman (bell hop? doorman?) opened the cab door and took my suitcase. Mean while, I fumbled with trying to pay the fare and provide a reasonable tip. On exiting the cab, I suddenly started worrying about having to tip the bellman for pulling my roller suitcase that I could jolly well have been pulling myself. We got into the hotel lobby and up the escalator to reception. Suddenly I realized that I didn't have my computer. In my fluster in paying, I left it in the cab.

The bellman, sprinted back down the stairs to doors, out across the parking lot and into the street. He found and stopped the cab. Two minutes later, I had my computer back.

Now I'm in my hotel, typing this blog entry on my recovered laptop. My stress level is has cracked the meter. I'm wishing I was back home in the yurt. Someday, I'll own a cabin retreat where my nearest neighbor is thirty miles away. It will be silent except for the wind and nothing will rival the stars in brightness... oh, and great broadband Internet access.

What you don't see is the huge coal fired power plant with its giant piles of coal and clouds of rolling steam. It seems so 1800s.

Here I am trying to work in my Superliner Roomette:

In 1984, I taught Basic programming at the Blackfeet Reservation Community College.

Just out of a tunnel in the Columbia Gorge

Obviously, I'm in the last car of the train